


Living in the Moment

by onceandfuturekiki



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Post-Ep: Hope (ep. 56)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 12:52:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7935244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceandfuturekiki/pseuds/onceandfuturekiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A missing scene fic for episode 56. After the cannonball contest, Keyleth knocks on Vax’s door. A rough version of this was posted to Tumblr a few months ago, but this is the polished, final version.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living in the Moment

When Vax hears the knock on his door, he’s expecting it to be followed by something being thrown at him, courtesy of his sister, so he sits up quickly, prepared to protect himself. What he’s not expecting is to see Keyleth’s head peek inside, a tentative smile on her face.

“Hi,” she says, her voice quiet, but lighter than he’s heard it in a long time. “I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No, I was awake,” he assured her. “Kind of awaiting retaliation.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry about it. Come on in.”

The smile blooms fully on her face as she enters the room, closing the door behind her. As she moves to sit next to him on the bed, Vax notes her wet hair hanging over one shoulder, dampening the edges of her nightgown where it settles beneath her collar bone. He finds himself fascinated by the darkening of the fabric and the way it sticks to her freshly cleaned skin and the occasional droplet of water escaping the ends of her hair and running down her neck, her chest, disappearing beneath the thin material of her clothes. When she’s right up next to him, sitting down beside him, pulling her hair over her other shoulder, he becomes distracted by the spot where her hair had just been resting, dewy and glowing where the false moonlight shining through the window of Scanlan's mansion catches the water still left on her skin. One remaining drop of water finds its way down her arm, inch by slow inch, and he has to fight against the temptation reach out catch it with his thumb, to follow its trail back up her arm, over the curve of her shoulder, to trail his fingers through her wet hair.

It takes her uncharacteristically carefree sigh and her happy smile to draw his attention away, and he finds that despite the fact that he’s not exactly sure what she’s so happy about, Vax finds that he can’t help but smile back.

“You seem happy,” he notes, allowing himself to reach out and grasp her hand. Unlike most times, when even her displays of affection are hesitant and reserved, she immediately laces their fingers together, her thumb stroking across his knuckles.

Keyleth takes in a deep breath. “I am,” she says on the exhale, her face taking on expression of surprise, confusion, but still, contentment. “For now anyway.”

It’s been a long time since he’s seen her so light. The weight that she’s been carrying around for so long seems to have disappeared, and he’s not sure she’s ever been so unguarded with him. It’s enough to lighten his own heart, and the smile he feels spreading across his face is one that he knows he couldn't fight against, even if he wanted to.

“You should have come down to the hot springs with us,” she says, squeezing his hand. “It was fun.”

Vax looks down at their joined hands bashfully. “I had some stuff to do.”

“What stuff?”

“Just some… sibling stuff.”

He can feel her eyes studying him, trying to figure out how serious of a matter this is, so he squeezes her hand back, and gives her a smile, hoping to quell her curiosity and whatever concern he knows is probably creeping up into her stomach. She’s happy right now, and he doesn’t want to ruin that with further questions about why he didn’t join the rest of the rest of group.

It seems to work, as Keyleth’s curious gaze softens and her smile grows somewhat goofy. “We killed a dragon today,” she says, the end of her sentence morphing into a giggle.

“We did,” he replied, feeling that stupid, adoring look take over his face as he watched her. There was a time that he would try to school his features into an expression less likely to give away his feelings, but he knows he was never quite as good at doing that as he'd always wanted to believe.

“And I turned myself into a meteorite!”

He can’t help laughing at her excitement, but the memory causes the worry to claw its way into his throat again, a shadow of what he felt when he saw her appear in the sky and then start plummeting toward the ground.

Keyleth must notice the change in his thoughts, because she pulls their joined hands into her lap, her other hand covering them. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

Shaking his head, Vax tries to smile reassuringly. “Nothing.”

“Vax…” her brow is starting to furrow and the smile is slipping from her face, and he finds himself desperate to stop it, to bring that happy, carefree expression back.

“I was scared. When I saw you falling,” he explains, trying to keep his voice steady to not worry her further. “But you’re a badass druid, I should have known you’d be fine.”

A familiar, embarrassed smile stretches her lips, and she ducks her head the ways he does when she’s blushing and wants her hair to hide her face. Now, though, her hair is wet and swept to the side, leaving her blush and her smile completely uncovered, allowing Vax to see them on full display in a way he never has before. He feels his heartbeat pick up at the sight of her wide smile and the way the pink of her skin shows, bright and beautiful, in the light coming through the windows.

“The only reason I used that Gate Stone was because I was worried about you,” she says, still not looking at him, her gaze locked on their tangled fingers, where she traces over his knuckles with the fingertips of her free hand. “That dragon was flying away with you inside of it, and I didn’t even have any kind of plan. I just knew that I needed to get to you.” She brings his hand up to her lips and presses several quick kisses against his knuckles.

He’s expecting the expression she’s been wearing since this whole thing began, the somber, slightly panicked, constantly worried one that only seems to get worse every day, to have taken up residence on her face again, but when she looks up she's smiling again, not quite as carefree as she was when she first walked in, but still uncharacteristically happy and light. “We’re both alive,” she says, and he wonders if he’s imagining her moving closer to him.

“That’s… quite the departure from your usual stance,” he notes, trying not to let his hope consume him.

“I know,” she says. “And tomorrow I’ll probably be worrying about… everything again.” She looks off to the side, away from the windows, staring into the darkness of the room for a long moment. The moonlight hits her still-wet hair, lighting it up like a bright, polished piece of copper. Vax tries to read her expression, but her face is draped in shadow, and he can only make out the soft curve of her cheek, the bow of her parted lips, the vibrant gold of her eyes. When she turns back to him, her expression is serene, a soft smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “But for now… I had a really good day.”

She moves to stand, and his grip on her hand tightens unintentionally, worried that she’s going to leave. To his surprise, though, she simply repositions herself on the bed, pulling back the covers and climbing in next to him. His arms immediately go around her as she begins to push him back against the pillows, her cheek against his shoulder.

“Not that I mind at all,” Vax whispers as his arms tighten around her. “But what are you doing?”

Keyleth settles in against him, sliding her hand across his stomach, then up his chest to rest over his heart. “I’m living in the moment,” she answers, pressing a line of light kisses against his jaw. “For now, anyway. You can thank your sister.”

“Umm… okay,” he responds, a bit confused, as he begins to regret the chicken-y mess he’d made in Vex’s bed. A vague thought of maybe doing something about it starts to form in his head, but then Keyleth presses into him, tangling their legs together. As he feels her breath fan out against his neck as she starts to fall asleep, the idea evaporates completely, and he wraps his arms around the woman he loves tightly, savoring the moment as he, too, drifts off to sleep.

Later, after she’s washed the creamy chicken mess out of her hair, Vex creeps into her brother’s room, a very strong glue concoction she’d pilfered from Percy’s things in her hands. But when she sees Vax and Keyleth sleeping peacefully, their arms wrapped around each other and content smiles covering their faces, she turns around and quietly creeps out of the room. She can get her revenge some other time.


End file.
